Events

Spring 2015

Gallery Tour

Realms of Earth and Sky: Indian Painting from the 15th to the 19th Century with Krista
Gulbransen, Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture Studies at Whitman
College, and exhibition contributorDate: Thursday, January 29, 2015Time: 5:30 p.m.

Lectures and Workshops

Shahzia SikanderInternationally acclaimed Pakistani-born artist and MacArthur Fellow Shahzia Sikander
will discuss her artistic practice of experimentation and disruption of historical
Indo-Persian painting styles. Presented by the Department of Art History and the
Tang Teaching Museum and supported by the Alfred Z. Solomon Residency Fund.Date: Thursday, February 5, 2015Time: 7:30 p.m.

Molly Aitken and Dipti KheraTwo leading scholars of Rajput painting — Molly Aitken, Associate Professor of Art
History at The City College of New York, and Dipti Khera, Assistant Professor of Art
History at New York University — will lecture on pleasure in South Asian paintings.
Made possible by the Alfred Z. Solomon Residency Fund.Date: Thursday, April 2, 2015Time: 7:00 p.m.

Talha Rathore and Hiba SchahbazArtists Talha Rathore and Hiba Schahbaz will speak about the traditional techniques
in Realms of Earth and Sky and the ways in which each has modernized and personalized
the miniature tradition in their practice. Made possible by the Alfred Z. Solomon
Residency Fund.Date and Time - Public conversation: Thursday, April 16, 7:30 p.m.Date and Time - Miniature Painting Workshops: Friday, April 17, 12:00-2:00 p.m. and 2:30-4:30 p.m.Free. Reservations required. Call 518-580-8080.

Gallery Tour

Realms of Earth and Sky with Rachel Seligman, Assistant Director of Curatorial Affairs,
and Saleema Waraich, Assistant Professor of Art History at Skidmore CollegeDate: Tuesday, April 14, 2015Time: noon

Spring 2013

Trajectories of Tradition: A Rajput Intervention

Description:In early 20th-century India, Abanindranath Tagore undertook to rejuvenate India's
painting traditions in order to create a national alternative to European-style oil
painting. He and his followers came to be called the Bengal School. Histories of India's
modern art inevitably recount this episode, following a now familiar trajectory that
starts with the establishment of British art institutions in India and the subsequent
demise of the Subcontinent's artistic traditions. This talk questions the premise
of artistic demise by taking a closer look at how India's court artists answered colonial-era
challenges to their traditions. It focuses on the project of a father and son, Rahim
and Chotu, to reformulate royal portraiture at the Rajput court of Bikaner in the
1860s and 70s. Strategically traditional and not-traditional, the prototype the two
Rajput court artists devised was realized in several versions, including a superb
portrayal of Bikaner's Maharaja Sardar Singh at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York. A close reading of their prototype and the drawings that led up to it, will
not only highlight how they viewed the place of their tradition in India's rapidly
changing visual culture, but will also bring to the fore the kinds of art historical
elisions that were essential to the Bengal School's success. In doing so, the talk
will disorder the established art historical narrative to reopen its assumptions for
discussion.